Chương 268: 53. Staging Area 2

I'd assumed that was the end of the night. Turns out, in an expeditionary camp, "you think you get to rest" is usually just fate clearing its throat before delivering the punchline. The night had deepened further, the noise around the main fire thinning out. I was heading back toward my tent when I remembered I'd left my canteen near the roost, and had to feel my way back through the dark to fetch it.

I hadn't found the canteen yet when I heard voices — low, unhurried — coming from the back row of the dragoon tents. Not the clipped tone of a watch handover. Not a briefing. More like the loose talk of people who'd just peeled a day's worth of aches out of their shoulders and settled in with hot water or a little thin wine, going nowhere in particular. By all rights, I should have turned around immediately.

Eavesdropping on off-duty soldiers is exactly the kind of scene that, in any light novel with half a sense of self-preservation, ends badly for the person doing the listening. The problem was — The second I heard my own name, my feet grew a conscience and refused to move another inch.

"So what do you all actually think? About that one?"

"Which one?"

"Who else — Lord Cedric, obviously."... Wonderful. There went any chance of sleep until I heard the rest of this. I abandoned every principle I owned and took half a step back into the shadows. The speaker was the dragoon with the scar through her left eyebrow, leaning against an upturned barrel with an iron cup in hand, voice unhurried. Three others sat nearby — all faces I recognized from around the fire earlier that evening. The youngest spoke first.

"At first I figured he was just some stray trouble Her Highness picked up on a whim."

"And now?"

"Now I think... he's still trouble." Quiet laughter rippled through the group. I very nearly marched out to defend my honor on the spot. Reason intervened: four seasoned dragoons, one of me, and a flagpole that was probably already being mentally reserved for my remains. I held my tongue. Another chimed in.

"Trouble or not — Her Highness lets him stay this close, all the way into the inner circle. That's not ordinary trouble anymore."

"Fair point."

"And have you noticed? Her Highness's mouth is just as sharp with him as with anyone. But the way she does it isn't the same at all."

"How's it different?"

"Were your eyes busy polishing tack today?" The scarred dragoon cut in, calm and even.

"With anyone else, Her Highness sees a mistake, she cuts them down. Sees someone lagging, she tears into them. Sees someone in the way, she kicks them clear. With him—" This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. She paused, choosing her words.

"She yells first. Checks if he's alright second. Drags him back to safety third."... Hold on. Was that summary a little too accurate? I leaned into the dark, feelings doing something genuinely complicated. Part of me wanted to argue I wasn't some stray thing picked up off a roadside. The other part couldn't, in good conscience, argue the point. The youngest lowered her voice, conspiratorial.

"I saw something earlier, by the way."

"Saw what?"

"This evening — Her Highness, in her human form, holding Lord Cedric's hand and just looking at it. For a good while."

"... You sure that wasn't a wound check?"

"Never said it wasn't." She blinked, all innocence.

"I'm just saying, the fact she'd do the checking herself, with her own two hands — doesn't that seem like it means something?"

"Now that you put it that way..."

"And up in the air today — she dropped altitude specifically to steady that hanging cage. I figured at first it was because she was worried about Lady Jessi falling out. But thinking back on it... maybe she was more worried a certain someone was laughing too hard and was about to end up in there himself." More stifled laughter. I wanted to object. The problem was, I didn't have much of a case. Because I had laughed.

And knowing Ignicia, if the wind had been a shade stronger and her mood a shade worse, there was a genuinely non-trivial chance I'd already be a resident of that cage. One of the others took a slow sip of hot water.

"I don't think it's just that, though."

"Go on."

"Her Highness has led people before. But she's never let anyone get this close. Close enough to still be standing next to her even at her worst." That drew half a second of silence from the group. Because it was true. Ignicia wasn't the type to collect people around her. There was no "safety in numbers" setting anywhere in her worldview. The mere fact that she hadn't personally chased someone off was, by her standards, already a significant exception. The scarred dragoon raised an eyebrow.

"So what's your read?" The other shrugged.

"How should I know. Maybe Her Highness finally found someone who doesn't bolt the second she's done yelling at them."

"That's rare enough on its own."

"Or maybe there's something about him she can't afford to leave unattended." No one laughed at that one. Because everyone knew exactly what it meant. The scale. The Dragon Soul. All the things nobody said out loud. The youngest, mercifully, dragged the mood back up.

"Still, Lord Cedric's got a strange kind of nerve, if you ask me."

"How so?"

"Anyone else gets pinned by two of Her Highness's looks and three of her comebacks, they fold and stay folded. He actually talks back."

"That's not strange nerve," the scarred dragoon corrected, perfectly calm.

"That's a strange survival strategy."

"Ha — brutal."

"But Her Highness has never actually done anything to him."

"Which is exactly what makes it strange."

"Is there a chance," another whispered, like she was about to say something treasonous, "Her Highness actually... kind of likes that?"

"You want to die?"

"I'm not saying it to her face!"

"Make sure it stays that way. Permanently." Another wave of muffled laughter rolled through the tent row. Standing in the dark, my mood shifted somewhere between I should go out there and argue my case and... okay, these people are frighteningly perceptive. It's a strange feeling — going around thinking you're just barely holding on, scraping by under the disapproval of a dragon with a truly terrible temperament, and then finding out that from the outside, it's been obvious all along: She might find you a nuisance.

But she's never once let you out of her sight. I was still debating whether to slip away while I had the chance when the youngest added one more thing.

"What do you think happens once we reach Three Rivers Fortress, though?"

"Happens how?"

"The mood. It's not the front line — it's a transfer point. People converging, resupply teams, gawkers. If someone walks right up and asks Her Highness what Lord Cedric is to her—""That person dies."

"Exactly what I was thinking."

"And badly, too."... Why did that conclusion sound so entirely plausible. The scarred dragoon offered the closing word, like she was wrapping up a report.

"Enough guessing. What happens above our heads isn't ours to decide."

"So what's your own read, then?" She was quiet a moment before answering, slowly.

"My read is—" The fire popped once.

"Her Highness doesn't keep him close because he's entertaining. Or because he's particularly good with words." She paused.

"It's because he's already become someone too important to leave in anyone else's hands." The group went still for a couple of heartbeats. Then someone murmured, low: "... Yeah. That tracks." After that, the conversation drifted apart on its own — someone complaining about having to check saddle buckles at dawn, someone else grumbling about the hardtack, a bet forming on whether Jessi would scream inside the cage again tomorrow.

I eased back through the dark and finally found my canteen hanging on a rack on the far side. Honestly, I should have felt at least a little guilty about the eavesdropping. Instead, the only thing echoing clearly in my head, the whole walk back, was that one line: Too important to leave in anyone else's hands.... God, that woman. It sounded more like something Ignicia would actually do than any sweet nothing ever whispered. And the worst part was — I understood exactly what it meant.